East Village, NYC - A little cafe on Avenue A. The main dining area is absolutely packed with villagers, red-eyed and ready to regale their table mates with stories about last night. Two beleaguered waiters - black aproned both - are deftly weaving between tables and chairs and the mounds of finely distressed denim and slinky feline fur that has fallen off the back of them (the chairs, that is). After a quick once-over I declare this to be a scientifically suitable sampling, find a seat in the corner and order a small coffee.

It's loud in a convivial, morning way. At a certain point all of the conversations overlap and intensify, and I'm lost in the mess and the murmur of the average; another one of those highly suspect moments where I have this sense that I'm peeking inside something. This is hopeful. The idea - I think - is that because a place is busy, there's a complicated sort of cross pollination of sights and sounds and smells that goes on and if you sit very still and concentrate on that vague middle distance right in front of your nose, the sum of a moment will begin to reveal itself in degrees.

Looking around, books appear to be  a vital  prop. Everyone has one, and though most couples are just holding them for the effect while they munch or text or chat, a few appear to actually be reading. I spot a fresh Joyce. A thumbed Franzen. A little girl in pigtails and green corduroy overalls sits near the window, her breakfast abandoned, gently tracing complicated patterns across the face of an iPad. Beside her, a young woman who I presume is her mother - thick sweater, thin fingers - is staring vacantly in to the drowsy lace of steam hovering above her coffee bowl, her hand resting on a book. They both appear to be on break.

An older couple across the aisle from me is having a scripted argument at high volume, complete with the hollow emphasis and awkward pauses-for-typo-fixing that must be normal during high-intensity script reading. I think they're supposed to be dysfunctional grandparents. They argue about the argument. These two arguments are difficult to keep straight. The inherent meta distance that it creates is an odd echo of fights I've actually heard in the street; bedroom brawls dragged outside that are acutely aware of their audience and the dramatic possibilities therein. Thankfully, iPad girl is out of earshot.

"Do you see this? Do you see that I'm crying?!"

"Stop crying, we're out of tissues."

[Pause]

"Fuck you!" "Just fuck you?"

[Thoughtful pause, scribble.]

"Fuck your fucking tissues!"

[More scribbling.]

"Fuck your fucking crying!"

My coffee arrives. A willowy blonde with comically long bangs and underlined eyes just sat down behind me. She's wearing layer upon layer of this ethereal, gauzy stuff that looks not unlike huge sheets of kleenex, bound up around an inhuman waistline. The whole ensemble is reminiscent of certain predatory insects that I remember David Attenborough inspecting on public TV when I was a kid. The ones that caused you to flinch away from the screen when they finally went in for the kill; all armor and eyes beneath their camouflage. Definitely a model. I've seen more model-types in the past five days than I had in six months of living in Brooklyn.

"No, that's wrong. You sound too simplistic when you say fatalism. You need to add sarcastic emphasis."

"Is fatalism sarcastic?"

[Thoughtful pause]

"Sure!"

I'm sitting near the kitchen. Like most kitchens in the city it's narrow and white and run by three hispanic guys. They all sport tropically patterned pants and one has his thick hair combed straight back; glossy and black with those thin grooves that a dude comb makes with gel. The other two are wearing baseball caps; the brims rounded and low, sandlot style. Their hands move with unbelievable speed - pulling ingredients out of those shallow aluminum bins and sliding the plates left across the scarred white plastic of their prep counter - but their heads stay oddly still, detached almost. Supervising.

Ray Charles is playing through speakers that point out towards the cafe, but the guys in the kitchen have something brassy and rhythmic coming out of their tinny little radio and the ensuing battle for acoustic space - which now includes the deeply percussive sound of heavy pots being dropped in to a sink and a whispered discussion that the blonde is having about 'him' - only heightens this overwhelming sense that the scene is bigger than its component pieces; that I'm staring at something that I can't quite see.

Now the little girl is grasping her iPad and tilting it back and forth and occasionally holding it above her head, squinting as though she's looking at something very bright or very far away. She is clearly resisting the urge to blink.

"That's sounds wrong too, you're assuming the audience is stupid." "Well, maybe the audience IS stupid!"

[Pause]

"Maybe say 'suicidal bitch' instead."